


Trouble is Her Business

by MoralitySucks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Detective Noir, F/F, Mobster AU, Murder Mystery, Mystery, POV First Person, noir mystery, noirstuck, pulp mystery, pulp noir, serial plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 12:18:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10831125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoralitySucks/pseuds/MoralitySucks
Summary: This is a detective noir AU written from Jane's perspective set in a city resembling a 1920's earth metropolis that is gripped tightly in the green hand of the infamous mobster boss Mr. English and his 'family' of criminals. Jane Crocker runs a private investigations agency and is hired by a gorgeous woman (Roxy) to locate a missing friend (Calliope) in a case that will bring them all closer together and deep into the seedy underbelly of the crime world. More characters will be introduced as the story progress and no aliens were humanized in the making of this fic.





	1. The Short Hello

It was late. The top off of a long, hot day in this stinking hot town. Literally stinking, as my nose was all too happy to remind me of the putrid garbage bags lining usually orderly city streets in careless piles that grew when decent folk weren’t looking. Canton was a bustling metropolis full of average citizens too lazy to take their garbage further than the curb, which meant a simple garbage strike could really cripple the place. As I set my window fan to cycle air out of my questionably licensed detective agency that was really a single room in a bland office building, I wished the city was as lazy about its crime as it was the trash.

A nice thought, but then I’d be out of a job. 

I had just finished buttoning my soft blue blouse back up after a futile attempt to scrub out lingering gun powder and some questionable oily black substance from the day’s escapades following a bad lead from a paranoid client when I heard the urgent knock at the door. Checking my watch, I rolled my eyes. The plaque next to my office door said 12pm -9pm and here we were at 8:55. If I were a restaurant, I would send a haggard server to tell whoever is knocking that the kitchen is closed and they should politely fuck off to the nearest open late Taco Bell. And maybe that was exactly my intention when I opened the door, but one look at the broad filling my doorway like an art nouveau fresco sent those notions flying out the window to fall by the wayside with the rest of the trash. 

She was taller than me without the six inch stilettos between her feet and the frankly undeserving floor below her; getting stabbed by those heels seemed a fair price to pay for the view, in my mind. The shoes were satin black and her bubblegum pink toenails peeked out of the floral patterned mesh that covered the tops of her feet which led up to the type of stems you see on overgrown wild sunflowers, slim but sturdy and reaching up over the top of the fence- er, stretching up under the colorful dress she wore. 

The dress was something else, a pale magenta chemise that stopped rather abruptly a few inches above her dimpled knees, at least a foot shorter than was fashionable right now. Definitely not a dress for dancing, or not for dancing in polite company anyway. The purple beading that embellished the dress along delicate crochet matched the exact color of the silk elbow length gloves that covered most of her smooth arms, and where you could see her bare shoulders between the dress straps and a black feather boa you could see freckles of someone who liked to be under the sun without much in the way. 

Looking directly at her face had me thinking of sunflowers again. Dirty blond hair curled and coiffed about her head, something else you didn’t see on the tiny flapper girls crying fashion on the magazine covers when bobs, hats and low profile hairstyles were all the rage. Something about her freckled cheeks and pastel painted eyes seemed to glow at me in the dark office and I wondered if I was feeling myself attracted to pollen or sucked in by a mesmerizing and dangerous light. 

“Mrs. Crocker…?” Her fuchsia lips parted to allow the words out, but not much further. Despite her bold fashion choices that so loudly begged the eye’s attention, she spoke reservedly, in what was obviously a restrained tone from what she was used to, and she seemed to be shirking from the light of the hallway. 

“It’s miss, not to put too fine a hollow point on it.” I heard myself responding automatically before I had come close to fully registering the creature that had manifested on my doorstep. “Hoo, that is to say, I am Ms. Crocker, who did you lose?”

That might have been the wrong thing to lead with.

A carefully held countenance cracked and the woman scoffed in an attempt to disguise sudden tears as indignation. “I’m sorry?! What kinda greeting is that?” An already fair complexion had paled enough to let me glance through the layers of makeup attempting to hide worried looking bags under her eyes and the pinched, visible exhaustion of someone that hasn’t slept for days. 

“Whoa, m’am, I apologize, it is a little late in the night and my tongue can get a bit cavalier on its own.” I spoke quicker, more friendly in an attempt to placate the now shivering woman. “Please come in, and you can start by telling me where you got my name and what brings you out this late on such an odiferously offensive night.”

She stood in hesitation, considering my words. With all her weight on one foot, she tapped the other in thought and fiddled with the boa laying across her arms. I read doubt in every line of her, as well as a few more personal things I read between the lines that I will keep to myself. “Yes, of course.” She finally said, stepping past me into the embarrassingly sparse office. “But I think it would be easier and less snooty to just say it stinks outside instead of odiferous-whatever you said.” 

I blinked at her as she went by, noticing how much more of a fitted waist her dress had than I was used to seeing. “Nothing will reveal someone’s snootiness quite like a garbage strike, and nothing puts off foot traffic quite like it, either.” 

She watched me pull the chair out for her with raised eyebrows. “They are striking for a good reason, you know. With the Mayor missing, their union is in danger. The whole city is in danger, if you ask me.” 

“I see. Is that who you want me to find?”

“No. But somebody oughta.”

Somebody oughta should be my agency motto. “Why don’t you have a seat, Miss…?” A question loaded with six live rounds, at least.

“Ms. Lalonde, Roxy if you like.” Roxy, which I liked very much, poured herself into the chair like a long island iced tea- tall, gorgeous and deceptively sweet. A faint hint of vodka followed just behind, like an aftertaste. “I was sent here by an acquaintance. Jake Strider? He told me you could, uh, find anything.”

“Hmm.” I said. Not exactly a successful gig, the Striders. I thought I was being paid to follow an unfaithful lover, but my client really just wanted to keep tabs on his boyfriend. Once I keened to the game he was playing, I refunded his money and went straight to the oblivious boyfriend he had hired me to tail, spilled the beans on the whole operation. That was Jake, and he took all those red flags straight to the altar with the controlling ex client. You can lead a horse to water, but some of them might try to breathe it like air and drown right there on dry land like big, stupid assholes making bad decisions. 

I can not believe I got a referral from that mess of a case. 

“But you were right, the first thing you asked? I did lose someone. Well, not lost exactly, I could probably point on a map where she might be if she, if, uh-” Her lips moved as she struggled to articulate something that seemed to be making her physically ill on the way out. Swallowing, she started again. “If she is still alive, I have a good idea of where she’s being kept, but I can’t get in myself and the police, well, they’re useless unless I can get some proof. And even then…” 

I nodded along, wanting to believe this could be as straightforward as all that but a sixth sense was sounding off air sirens as I circled closer to the hypnotizing flame of this dame’s capitalized Trouble. “If all that is true, then you are already ahead of the game compared to most of the people that come through that door looking for my help.” 

She pursed her lips. “That’s good, cuz I think we’ll need the head start.” 

Foreboding crept up my spine like a swarm of ants. I tried to laugh it off. “Hoo, dear, now why would you say something so ominous?”

In response, she slid a creased picture across the desk, and I knew the trouble before I had time to focus on it. A beautiful girl smiled shyly at the camera, her cheeks flushed with a light green that matched the swirls on her cheekbones and complimented the darker green of her complexion. I turned it over on the desk because looking at the young woman in it was raising my blood pressure dangerously. “Ms. Lalonde. This is-”

“That’s right.”

I laughed, this was absurd. “I do not know what you think I can do about one of Mr. English’s children, but-”

Roxy slammed an open hand down on top of the photograph, the sudden noise startling me into a recoiled jump as if it had been a gunshot. “Callie. Her name is _Callie_ and she is a person all her own, separate from her awful family. And, Ms. Crocker, she needs help.” 

It was my turn to scoff. “And that is a real tragedy, but her father built this town, and I don’t mean the buildings. He has every shit bird in this city from petty thieves to organized mercenaries on his payroll. I would have to be completely out of my pretty little gourd to try and tango with that head on for any reason! It’s too much for all the coppers in town, how could I hope to manage?”

Sneering now, showing her white teeth behind bright lips like a snarling cat pitying the prey it played with, Roxy went in for the kill. “You know as well as I do cops are useless, especially when vulnerable women suffer at the hands of powerful men.” 

Oof. The finishing blow. 

I swallowed down my doubts and shrugged my shoulders. “I’m listening.”


	2. Devil in the Purple Dress

The thing about Roxy that I learned pretty quick was that once she really got talking, you had about as much chance of slowing her down as you did stoppering an active volcano. Your best bet was to hunker down through the deluge and asses the damage once it passed.

Already, I had heard all about the oppressive life Mr. English’s youngest child had toiled away behind closed doors inside the garish green mansion on the hill and two earfuls about the violent, petty brother making that life more of a hell every day. I had the line of crime family succession explained twice and sketched out for emphasis to me, Callie’s name circled after a crude tombstone was sketched around her father’s name. We were fresh out of sidewalk chalk in the office, but I got the feeling she would not be above crouching down to get a more detailed visual aid involved. I certainly would not be above watching her crouch down.

“Alright, dear, I think we might be talking ourselves in circles.” I interjected when she paused for a worried breath. “You say the girl’s brother has motive in the inheritance, legal or otherwise, to make her disappear? Why not dear old dad? They both made her miserable, should they not both be suspect?”

Roxy laughed a short, cold huff that disrupted curls of hair that had fallen onto her face. “Well, dad’s no doll either, o’ course. But it’s not his style to get his hands dirty these days. He’s got a shiny set of flunkies for that. And, well, ‘tween you and me…” Her eyes wandered along with her thoughts and she stared into the void with the look of someone who couldn’t decide between throwing up and throwing fists. “I think this whole fuckin’ will and testament nonsense is a sick game to see which of his kids is sick enough to kill the other.”

I balked despite myself. “What kind of monster plays games with kids lives? I find that a little hard to buy into, even from English.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought I was hirin’ someone more familiar with the criminal side of human behavior, but maybe you need cases a little less horrifyin’ like innocent people to follow at the behest of jealous lovers? Do you not believe me or do you not want to believe me?”

I could hear her patience wearing thinner than the silk of her chemise and I broke eye contact to escape her pointed glare. “Listen, I need to get all the information you have to turn this into a workable case, that includes information you do not realize to be important. That’s why I need to ask these questions. I promise you, I’m not trying to poke holes into your story, I am accepting you as a client which mean I believe you. Or, at least that I believe you believe to have the correct information and for now I will take that at face value.”

“Likewise, I’m sure.” Roxy’s sarcasm was as heavy as the fake lashes she wore that fluttered when she rolled her eyes, but I could tell I had diffused the situation for the time being. “As I was sayin’, he is definitely a monster and he’s been abusing those kids their whole lives, it is not at all hard to buy into for anyone that knows him personally. Him and his gang, they praise violence and cruelty more than anything else so o’ course he’d want the ultimate decision of inheritance to be a ruthless battle to the death.”

“And do you know Mr. English personally? This is an awful lot of knowledge about someone known only to be a bit of a paradoxical enigma about town.”

She shuddered, hair bouncing wildly as she shook her head and scrunched her nose in disgust. “Hell no, but I am unlucky enough to run in some of the same social bubbles as him.”

Something about her reaction struck me as a bit too dramatic to be completely sincere, but I could tell it would be a useless matter to press for now, so I moved on. “If all this is true, which we are assuming for the sake of expediency, why would Caliborn wait until now to make his move?”

“Oh, cuz English is dying of fuckin’ cancer and only has a few weeks left to be a miserable stain on this existence.” Her shrug was much more cavalier than the angry glint in her eyes and the half realized smirk her lips had curled into. “That’s the golden lining.”

“Don’t you mean silver lining?”

The smirk deepened. “Seems pretty golden to me.”

Ignoring this, I let my mind get caught up to the stunning revelation that the city’s most predominant crime boss was about to hustle the big pool game in the sky and leave a contested kingdom behind. Any day now could be the last of his tyrannical rule, and the shady parts of town would be thrown into even more chaos as soon as the word spread. This was invaluable information that my gut felt very sure of, yet I wished I could just as soon forget about. “I need a drink.”

My words, spoken half in jest to fill silence, obscured the smirk on Roxy’s face like a cloud across the moon until it twisted into a shameful sneer. “So could I. Fell right off that wagon when Callie went missing a few days ago, she’d be so disappointed in me if she knew…” She finished the thought with an eye watering yawn

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, I wanted to offer her help I wasn’t capable of giving, but I found myself barely able to offer reassurance. “I doubt anyone has the self control to stay sober in situations as grim as this, try not to be so hard on yourself. You need a good night’s sleep more than anything else, I believe.”

This time, her laugh was bigger than the rest of her; it was sudden and jagged, jarring in the small space but enthralling in a way that made me almost laugh along, though I certainly did not get the joke. “Ain’t that the truest thing you said to me yet! I haven’t slept since the night she stopped responding to my messages and I don’t intend to anytime soon.”

“You can’t help your friend if you’re too sleep deprived to function, Ms. Lalonde.”

“Oh please, you’re stiffer than my last martini! Give the professional detective act a rest, we both know you’re unlicensed. I said you can call me Roxy.”

Shrugging, I stood up and walked to the side of the desk she sat at. “Okay, Roxy, it is nice to meet you. You can call me Jane, but please put Crocker on the check.” I held my hand out for a belated shake.

Reclining more in the office chair, she crossed her legs and fixed her dress before placing a manicured hand in mine. Well, a once manicured hand, now with chips on the nails and tell tale signs of nervous biting evident in the remnants of pink polish. “Nice to meet’ch’ya, Janey!” She said, giving my hand an enthused shake while giving me an amused smile. “I hope you don’t mind if I pay in cash.”

The word ‘cash’ had me smiling along with her. “I think we can make that work.”

“Great! Then I can go ahead and give you your first few days retainer and I can take you out to The Felted Sarcophagus so we can start lookin’ for clues-”

"Whoa, whoa, let’s put all that on ice and let it cool before slamming it. Who said anything about snooping around The Felt’s speakeasy?” This was heavier than anything else that had been said in the last fifteen minutes and I felt genuine alarm just discussing the plan near an open window, no matter how many flights off the ground we were. I dropped her hand to tug at my collar instead, feeling the heat and the stink pressing in on us from all around. “Please tell me the case does not involve messing around their notorious underground club.”

“Umm…” She twirled a finger around a tangled curl and looked at me with guilty eyes. “Gee, did I forget to mention that’s prob’ly where Callie’s bein’ held? Cuz there’s almost no chance it ain’t where she’s at, if I’m bein’ honest.”

“Roxy, you have trouble written all over you. Whether that trouble is your own doing or not remains to be seen, but you can really help yourself out by cutting the coyness about the facts and being straight with me.”

Roxy rolled her eyes once again, scoffing out a dry laugh of annoyance. “Sorry, I’m not very good at that. I’m not trying to trick you into anything, you can say no and turn me out into the night right now.”

I stared hard at her, trying to scry intent from the reflective surface of her eyes and reading only sincerity and grief. “What, after we shook on it?”

“It’s up to you. But if we’re gonna do this, I’d prefer we got on it.”

“By we, I assume you mean you will point me in the right direction and wait patiently for me to report back?”

She laughed. “Not in the slightest, see I’ve gotta lotta leads in the fire and I need to show you them all myself. And you definitely need me with you if you wanna get into the Sarcophagus, or need to get into it might be better wording. So just think of me like a rookie partner!”

I could feel a headache coming on and I held a hand over my eyes to contemplate this turn of events. “Fuck no.”

“Sorry?”

“Oh, excuse me, dear, I said ‘fuck no’. That is not how any of this works, I did not leave the force to get saddled with a ‘rookie partner’ in a mini dress that I have to protect through the most dangerous assignment of my career. I will help you with this so long as you take my word as god damn law and do as I say, and the first thing I say is you pull yourself out of the center of this mess and let me do the job you’re hiring me for.”

Her frown seemed more bored than affronted, and I gritted my teeth at the sight of it. “If I do hire you, it’s as backup. I’ll be paying you better than your asking price by a great deal, and to be honest I think that puts you in a position of deference to me, not the other way around. You don’t have to take this on, but I need someone runnin’ a similar below board operation as you because every word of this needs to be unofficial and off any kinda books.”

It was becoming pretty obvious that I had underestimated this woman on several levels. “How much more than my asking price?”

“Enough that I don’t think you should mind a quiet ride along from little ol’ me.” Her grin was a bitter cocktail of equal parts vicious excitement and foreboding anticipation. "Get the picture?"

Swallowing down more doubts, fears and alarm bells, I struggled for my bearings against the six foot tall flapper railroading me into dangerous territory. "I got the whole frame. Wow, that much, huh? Alright, then. Hmm. What if we made a compromise to start our ill fated shenanigans in the morning after you get enough sleep to be a functioning person? Can you at least give me that?

Roxy’s lip curled in distaste like she had just caught a whiff of the ripe garbage outside. “I’d really rather not do that, it isn’t safe…”

“Uh, what ever could you mean by that? Being sleep deprived around guns is not safe and I will definitely need to arm you for this sideshow to perform-”

“Oh, I’ve got my own gun, but thanks.” As she spoke, she moved her handbag from off her lap to the desk and unclasped the fastening to reveal a snub nosed 9mm nestled inside the cushioned purple interior. Grabbing the gun, she moved it about with the barrel pointed upwards, the dull light flashing on its mother of pearl grip. “Pretty fuckin’ cute, right? But don’t worry, it hits like moonshine.”

My head was pounding now. I grabbed her hand and her gun in a loose grip, pushing them both back towards the quilted purse on my desk. “Great then we are halfway ready. Just put that away for now, and we can meet up here after a healthy 8 hours and maybe start off with a gun safety talk-”

“Fuck that, I can do 6 hours, max. And if I can’t get ahold of you at 5 tomorrow morning, I will find someone else.”

I suddenly felt exhausted down to my bones. “I agree on the condition that you let me call in some help.”

“Nobody from the police force, I trust?”

I shrugged in what I hoped was the same coy gesture she had given me earlier. “No uniforms, I promise.”

“Then you have a deal. And a new client.”

“Lucky me.” 

***************

Miles across town a notoriously respected police detective was coming home after a hard day on the beat roughing up criminals, ne’er-do-wells and anyone that resembled a criminal or a ne’er-do-well. Once in the door, she removed her custom maroon trilby, careful not to snag it on her horns, and hung it off a hook on the wall, which was followed by her fitted duster and then gun holster. On her way to the kitchen, she sniffed idly at the screen installed in the hallway and stopped short in surprise to find a plaintive message from an old friend sent only a few minutes ago. Standing in a dark house lit only by the glow of the message, she grinned a toothy grin like a shark in the deep.


End file.
